Female Speaker: The
President of the United States of America:
Barack Obama. Narrator: If someone had
said 40 years ago that the President of the United
States would be visiting Cuba, Vietnam, Laos and
Burma -- and doing so as a partner -- nobody would
have believed you: given where things were
at that time. But that's exactly
what he's done. (music) Narrator: Each one
of these countries has been subjected to U.S. sanctions, or U.S. pressure, U.S. criticism, and that was
kind of the status quo for many years, if
not decades. President Obama, I think,
came into the office with a different approach: he
said in his inaugural address that "We will
extend a hand if you unclench your fist." And
that was a message to all adversarial, and in some
cases, authoritarian regimes. (music) Male Speaker:
(speaks Spanish) Narrator: Cuba: we had been clinging to a failed approach for decades, that had made
no progress in bringing greater opportunity
to the Cuban people. In fact, we had isolated ourselves through our approach. President Obama
decided early in his administration that we
needed to test engagement. (applause) The President:
Today as the President of the United States of
America I offer the Cuban people, "El saludo
de paz." (applause) Narrator: We said that we
were imposing an embargo, and isolating Cuba on
behalf of the Cuban people. That's not the policy they
wanted, and we could tell that when we were there,
because they were so filled with excitement
over the possibility of a better relationship
with the United States. (music) Male Speaker:
(speaks Spanish) (music) Female Speaker: If we want
democracy, we have to dare to live according to the
principles of democracy. Narrator: Burma has had a
remarkable transformation while President Obama
has been in office. From a closed,
military-led government to a democratic transition in
which Aung San Suu Kyi and her party won a free
election, and she'll be welcomed here at the White
House in September as a leader of that government. Female Speaker: Our people
are very appreciative of everything that has been
done by congress, and by administration to support
our democratic movement. We look forward to better,
closer relations, and perhaps now, a little bit
more on the business side now that we're
opening up an economy. (music) Narrator: The
crowds in Vietnam, were actually probably
the biggest. I think we had 2 million
people just on the motorcade route in
Ho Chi Min city. The thing I remember the
most about Vietnam is we did a town hall with our
young Southeast-Asian leaders. Female Speaker:
Barack Obama. (applause) Narrator: And
here are all these young, dynamic people, and
they're interested in entrepreneurship and the
environment, and there was a Vietnamese rapper who
got up, and the President asked her to rap. Audience Member:
Vietnamese or English? The President:
In Vietnamese. Audience Member: (raps
Vietnamese) Narrator: In that moment when that woman stood up and rapped to the President of the
United States, you know I think you're struck by how
much things have changed since the time helicopters
took off from our embassy in Saigon in 1975. (music) Narrator: I hope
the President's trip to Laos is the beginning of a
new relationship between our two countries. That relationship has
been defined by war. We dropped more bombs on
Laos than all of Europe in World War Two, during
the Vietnam War. Those bombs litter
the country. We can demonstrate once
more that the United States can face its own
history, and can confront it in a way that helps
people, but also allows us to build a new partnership
with a country that's in a very important
part of the world. The President: Well if you
look at what we've done in Cuba, and Myanmar, and
Laos, and Vietnam, these are countries that were
historic enemies, and it grows out of the vestiges
of the Cold War, but a new generation of people all
around the world are ready to turn the chapter and
we have to meet them, and work with them. And if we want to deal
with issues from climate change to wildlife
trafficking to dealing with terrorism, we need
the cooperation of everybody, and that's part
of what we've been able to accomplish, I think, over
the past seven, eight years is open up places
that previously were closed and engage people
in ways that will pay huge dividends in the future. (music)
